IGNAZIO BENEDETTI after GIAMBATTISTA NOLLI (1770)

NUOVA PIANTA TOPOGRAFICA DELLA CITTÀ DI ROMA DA QUELLA DEL NOLLI E AUMENTATA
Publ. by Mondaldini, Rome (1773)
Engraving on laid paper, with margins, cut into sixteen concertina-folding sections, laid to original linen support
Total dimensions: 47.5 x 68.5 cm
 
LITERATURE:
A.P. Frutaz, Le Piante di Roma, vol. 1 (1962), p.236, n.169b
 
 
 
 
 
The present work is a wonderfully-preserved example of the updated version of Nolli's seminal Pianta Picolla, one of the most important maps of Rome produced in the 17th century. Ignazio Benedetti  copied the design from Giambattista Nolli's reduced version of his 1748 Nuova pianta di Roma, called the Pianta Piccola, which had been etched by Giovanni Battista Piranesi and Carlo Nolli, updating it to include a dedication to Cardinal Carlo Boschi, four extra items on the key to the upper left, and a title at the base of Trajan's column in the lower centre. The publisher of our work, Moladini, later issued an updated version, which replaced the dedication to Cardinal Boschi with their address and the title of the work. 
 
 
 
Nolli's map was a milestone in the history of cartography, and was one of only a few ichnographic plan maps of Rome, rather than the more common birds-eye view maps. La Pianta Grande di Roma (the monumental version of the map, extending to over two metres in width) was the first accurate map of Rome since antiquity, and even today remains useful for understanding Rome’s historic centre, which has changed little over the last two and a half centuries. 
 
 
What is particularly exciting about the present example is that it has remained on its contemporary linen-mounting: this allowed the owner, likely a tourist in the city, to fold it in order to carry it around and refer to it with ease, not unlike a modern Ordinance Survey map.